Akua trained as a performer at University College Northampton before going on to study Postgraduate Arts Administration at City University, London. Her career is rooted in theatre via fringe at Battersea Arts Centre, continuing professional development for actors at International Workshop Festival, supporting students and staff at Central School of Speech & Drama, coordinating a cross art form programme at Watermans and running a professional touring theatre company Kazzum; producing approximately 20 productions.

She trained in script development (with Script Factory) and film production and in 2008 produced her first short film. Since then she has been selected for 2 talent labs with ‘B3 Media’: ‘Powerlab’ and ‘Talentlab’ which led to a producers short-course at the National Film Television School, and production coordination skills training from Jane Linfoot (2014 BAFTA Short Nominee).

In 2010 Akua was Assistant to the Line Producer for art film (Full Firearms, dir. Emily Wardill, 2011), then went on to production manage range of projects in music video, corporate film and reality television (Fam, prod. Filmhuset Produksjoner AS, 2011). In 2012 Akua became Head of Business Development for Zealous, working with digital strategy and producing online and live content. In 2012 she registered Kind Productions and in 2014 was selected for the Talentlab at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and more recently Creative England’s East of England Talent Module 2017. Under Kind Productions Akua has produced 3 shorts Tech Support (dir. Guy Armitage, 2013), Roxanne (dir. Paul Frankl, 2015) and Rachel (dir. Karen Anstee, 2016) and exec produced Ding Dong Ditch (dir. Trevor Williams, 2016). So far, her work has been seen at festivals including Palm Springs International Film Festival, East End Film Festival, Aesthetica and London Short Film Festival.

Akua is passionate about creative process and connecting audiences with authentic story telling.

Graham Atkins-Hughes

Having spent over 23 years working in photography, Graham has wealth visual knowledge to call on, all through this time, film and cinematography has always played a huge part in his inspiration. It was in 2014 that Graham decided to make his first foray into film making, by writing and directing a fashion film, Clementine.

Well and truly bitten by the directing bug in 2015 Graham collaborated with award winning poet Kate Bingham, to co-write his first narrative short. That film, Be Now, has now been screened at over 12 festivals around the world and is a film with a central question at its heart, concerning the choice which the protagonist is struggling with, it is also Part One of a trilogy of films dealing with the difficulties we all experience while trying to make life changing decisions. The second of these films, A STITCH IN TIME is in the advanced stages of pre-production, the third part of the trio, ‘The Meeting Point’ is in development.

In 2016 7&8 Productions the independent production company headed up by Graham, started developing their first feature script, which is already attracting attention from established names from within the film industry.